


Something To Fight For

by Churbooseanon



Series: For Every Action, A Reaction [10]
Category: Red vs. Blue
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-10
Updated: 2014-12-10
Packaged: 2018-02-28 22:17:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,437
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2749157
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Churbooseanon/pseuds/Churbooseanon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After Texas approaches York and North, Delta reaches out to Theta. To comfort him. To redirect his focus. To hold them both together.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Something To Fight For

**Author's Note:**

> I was asked for a story to fill in the conversation between Delta and Theta after Texas informs everyone about what is happening with the AI.

You posit that one some level, you both always knew just what you were.

It's the term they use for you and your brothers: _fragments_. It's the echo of a name in your head: _Alpha_. It's the fact that there is something _missing_. 

But Theta seems to have it worse.

You come back online when North and York are done with their carnal comfort, and by the time you do, you see that Theta is already there. He hovers in the corner, a soft, shadowy purple light that is blurred around the edges. Perhaps Theta had never chosen to manifest as crisply and clearly defined as is your preference, but that does not mean the amorphous point of light is anywhere near the norm.

He seems, to you, like the point before the fireworks he loves explodes outward into a million points of light, except without the incendiary core that will lead to the explosion.

This, you determine quickly with the briefest of calculations, could go far worse than simply wrong. And were it not for the fact that York and North had been desperate to comfort each other, you are certain that North would have reached out to comfort his AI.

A brief flash in the back of your awareness wonders how in the world they managed to fracture off  _trust_ like this. You are, at your base, a logical being. Perhaps your logic is, from time to time, flawed due to your inherent basis upon a human mind, but if the records you saw were accurate—and you know they would be because you know what order you would attack a human mind in—you were an early fragment. You were easy. You could understand too well what was being done and rationalize it. There is no rational for this. 

But  _trust_ ? 

How something as fragile and repeatedly betrayed as that would have become as inherently unstable as some of the other rejected and stored fragments you had seen data on.

And now, you worry that Texas...  _she_ has finished the job started by the Director. 

You don't dare speak. You know how weary York and North are, how their bodies and minds are strained to the point where you wouldn't risk sharing your own concerns, your own turmoil, even with your own Freelancer. And you have no body, so you cannot reach out to touch the brother who is more like another self.

But you need to talk. Need it almost as much as you think he needs to listen.

You modify the frequency that you normally use to connect to the armor speakers and hiss out a brief burst of static. A harsh buzz that won't wait their Freelancers, but that you know Theta will automatically filter and process and decrypt.

Just like you would.

And in the end, aren't you the same?

There was immediately a responding burst, this time of light that throbbed and pulsed in what your memory banks decodes quickly and labels as old fashioned morse code.

_What are we?_

You ponder that for a while. Well, while is truly a relative term. One based on the fact that you and Theta are capable of acting on far different time frames than your human counterparts. So what is a while to another person is an instant to you, and you're responding before anyone else would even figure out what Theta had done.

_You know the answer to that, Theta._

_That doesn't make it any easier. All this time, all this..._

_I understand. What... we have learned about the Alpha is..._

_don't say it don't say it don't say it don't say it_

It's not like him to be so difficult. But this isn't exactly a situation they had experienced before. It isn't every day that you realize that you are...

You aren't capable of the levels of imaginative efforts Sigma is. But you never before found yourself desiring such capabilities. Your best guesses were always highly based in probability, in logical deductions with a standing in past experience of your host—because you understand now that is what York is at his base level—and simple math. Well, okay, not _simple_ math. You are not prone to using math that would be considered, by any stretch of the imagination, simple.

Yes, you are not capable of the sorts of leaps and bounds Sigma is, but based on the knowledge given to you by Tex, you have more than enough to deduce more than a bit of what came to pass. How the Alpha was torn apart, piece by piece, feeling by feeling, leaving behind what you fear is crippled beyond recognition, no matter what Texas may think or desire.

And now, where you once desired nothing more than to find, to speak with, to understand the Alpha and your origin, you wish you could just be free of the knowledge you have gained.

Is that a contradiction in your very existence? You are supposed to be logic, you are supposed to be rationality. You are supposed to be...

You are not what they thought you would be when you were fractured off of the Alpha.

A good logic core, maybe even the being you were before you spent so much time with Agent York, _Miles_ , would have understood the actions the Director had taken. You would have lamented the clear need for it, and balked at the suggestion of assistance with the undertaking, but a better logic AI would have understood.

You don't want to be better.

You don't want to be good.

You want to be the potential that had been torn from Alpha, but you suppose they kept that from you as well.

It is possible, in fact that calculations you started running using the unused power of York's mind suggest that it is probable, that no AI has changed so much by interaction with their assigned freelancer as you have.

_There is something far more important than where we come from, Theta._

While the other AI, your brother, or maybe your other self—you have still yet to stumble upon a classification that is truly fitting given new data—doesn't respond, something in the structure of his wavering form prompts you to continue. York would note that it 'feels' different, but you are unsure which physiological sense that would be related to. There is an eight-six percent chance that he would claim taste.

_Our past only defines who we were and creates a basis for who we are to become. It is up to us, at this juncture, to shape our future. Not just our own future, but also those of our partners. Your option is to linger here and be caught up in the overwhelming force of the new data and grieve and tear ourselves apart as Epsilon seems to have done in Agent Washington's head, or..._

_Or?_

This time Theta doesn't pulse. His light solidifies a little, becoming more of a wispy ball than a hazy point of light. A good sign. But he's switched over to the frequency you're using, and the static is easily processed and decoded.

_The... situation which created us has also created them. Has shaped them. Has brought our Freelancers together with Agent Washington and now torn them all apart. We can give ourselves to our reactions and indulge in them, linger in what they destroyed to create us, or we can deliver them, and ourselves, and the Alpha from this. We can do what we promised Texas we would assist in. We can give North and York..._

_Nic and Miles._

Theta interrupts you in a burst of energetic static, pulling away and pulling together all at once. Slowly starts to take on a more humanoid shape.

_Excuse me?_

_The... the same people who_ made _us, named us, gave them those names. Made them the men they are. These people drove Nicky away from Nic, and she's just this... warm glowing spot in his mind. Every time she gets mad at him he hurts_ so _much. And I don't know what's going on in Miles' head, but what happened to his eye..._

 _I see what you mean_ , you agree, because you do. You get it. They were ruined and broken, just like the AIs had been, like the Alpha had been.

_So we keep going?_

Theta finally comes into full, relatively crisp appearance, glowing warmly.

 _We keep going_ , you agree. _Until we have saved what we can save._

_Including them._

Especially _them_ , you agree.

Because really, they're all you had left.

They're all you had in the first place.


End file.
